On September 7, 2019, I attended the All Tapestry Fall Picnic. Before participants started arriving, I recorded a voice memo describing the playground where the event was taking place and reflecting on some of the meta questions I was chewing on at the time, including how to form relationships with the youth and how my…
I met Hannah and Sam at a deli in Powell Gardens after a morning of hustling around. I thankfully remembered before I left the house that I would need to go to a local music store beforehand to buy an XLR cable to use with my new shotgun microphone, since today would be the first…
I heard Liz ask Zoe about how school was going, and she said her grades were some good and some bad (two A’s, two F’s). Liz then said, “Oooh, tell me about the A’s.” I ordered an iced coffee and came back to the table. I listened as the group chatted for a bit, then…
Although I would not yet apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for my research for many months, and I wouldn’t start taking long-form field notes until my next engagement, I nevertheless think of my participation in this holiday party in late 2018 as the beginning of my formal ethnographic presence with Tapestry. This event…
